


The Best Effect

by Teeelsie



Series: Clint Barton Bingo [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death mentioned, Clint Barton Bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, Grief, Hopeful ending?, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-16 10:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18689389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teeelsie/pseuds/Teeelsie
Summary: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence."  - Ralph Waldo Emerson----------------------------------------------------------------------------------After everything, Clint returns home to Laura and the kids.





	The Best Effect

**Author's Note:**

> Ach! Endgame! I've seen it twice and I'm an emotional wreck. I haven't been able to bring myself to look at any fic. I felt like I needed to write something but couldn't for the life of me see what that could possibly be. So I pulled out my Clint Barton Bingo card to just find some way to channel the emotional energy, and my eyes fell on the Clint/Laura square. Honestly, when I got the card, I didn't think I'd ever fill that square, but after Endgame, I guess I just need to.
> 
> I started out thinking I'd write a happy reunion scene. Instead I wrote this. It's basically 3000 words (see what I did there?) of catharsis. 
> 
> Thanks to Jackdaws45 and MillyVeil for great content feedback, and to KippyVee for being an awesome beta.
> 
>    
> 

  

They’re up late – even little Nate – because Laura will be damned if she’s going to tell her kids they have to go to bed with the way that Clint can’t peel his eyes from the four of them right now. He watches them, tracks their movement, gets skittish when one of them is out of his sight. Laura can see Cooper and Lila watching him equally closely, wary even - their eyes skimming over his hair, the scabs on his violently bruised knuckles, his haunted eyes - trying to reconcile the brittle smiles of the man in front of them with their happy dad who disappeared just three days before.

 

“What happened to your hair,” Nate laughs, running his tiny hand across the stubble on the side of Clint’s head. Clint flicks his eyes to Laura’s and her stomach tightens at the way he looks unsure, at a loss.

 

She makes dinner, pours him more coffee, and waits for the haunted look to recede a bit. It never does.

 

**

 

It was all completely unreal and she still wouldn’t believe a word of it if the ghost of her husband wasn’t right here next to her, telling her without words that every bit of it was true.

 

She’d had a strange moment of lightheadedness that day, then blinked and looked up, and Clint was gone. Her heart skipped as she shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted, scanning the yard. Everything was… different. It was suddenly cooler, the sun closer to the horizon than it should be for their noonday picnic – than it was just moments ago. The grass was dry and overgrown, one of the barn doors was off-kilter, hanging loosely from one hinge. She looked down at the table. The food was gone.

 

Up near the barn, Lila was holding a handful of arrows, staring off at nothing. “Lila, where’s your dad?” Laura called, not able to hide her rising panic at the inexplicable shift in her world.

 

Lila startled at her voice and looked around for a moment. “I don’t know,” she finally yelled. “He was right here.” She looked around the yard again. “ _Dad?_ ”

 

Laura watched for a second, praying that her husband would appear out of the barn, or push through the screen door of the house, tell her that everything was fine.

 

“Mom?” Cooper asked from behind her, sounding confused.

 

“Cooper, where’s my glove?” Nate wondered.

 

Laura reached out a hand to the boys, gesturing them over to her as she pulled her phone from her pocket. Her pulse beat wildly.

 

“Mom, I don’t know where he went!” Lila called back to her.

 

“Stay there, Honey, we’re coming back up! Coop, bring Nate.”

 

“Mom, what’s going on?” Cooper asked, fear creeping into his voice.

 

She moved them along quickly as she tapped the first name in her ‘Recents’. It rang a few times before he answered. “Clint?” She was relieved to hear his voice but it didn’t calm her. “Where are you?” she asked with a near-hysterical edge.

 

“Honey—?"

 

She heard a huge rumble in her ear and then the call abruptly cut off. Confused, Laura looked up at the yard where Clint should have been. He still wasn’t there and there was also nothing that should have made the noise she’d heard coming through the phone. She knew it was futile, but she held the phone up again. “Clint?”

 

She redialed the number, and when it went straight to voicemail, a wave of dread washed over her. “Boys, come on!” she said, and grabbed Nate’s hand to pull him along faster. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew enough about the existence of things like monsters and magic and aliens to know that whatever seemed to be happening, it was likely not part of their normal world.  

 

“Where’d Dad go?” Lila asked as they approached.

 

“I don’t know,” she said, because they both tried not to lie to the kids. “But we need to get to the house.” She grabbed Lila’s hand as they passed.

 

The kids knew enough, too, to know that when things got tense, they needed to do as they were told. It didn’t happen often – rarely, in fact (thank God) – but it _had_ happened, and they understood the protocol. They were back in the house in a short minute and then all four froze as the screen door slammed behind them. The house was a mess; a thick layer of dust covered everything. Laura forced her feet to move and immediately went to the television.

 

What followed had been the most surreal three days of her life. She and Cooper and Lila sat rivetted to the television, but she didn’t truly believe the things they were saying until Clint showed up 80 hours later, with a wildly uncharacteristic haircut, unfamiliar lines on his face, and a sadness in his eyes that communicated more than any words ever could.

 

**

 

When they’re finally alone in their room, hours later, he sits on the bed and pulls her to him so she’s standing between his legs. He wraps his arms around her, pushes his face into her, and just holds her there. His breath hitches. It takes her a minute to understand that he’s sobbing because she’s never actually seen him do it before. He’s being quiet about it, she realizes, so the kids won’t hear.

 

Laura doesn’t say anything, just holds him close with one hand, the other carding through his hair. It’s unusual – Clint’s typically stoic about the bad stuff – but recent events have been pretty unprecedented. Laura’s still reeling from just hearing about it, but Clint was in the middle of it all, so an atypical reaction is understandable.

 

After a couple of minutes, she glances at the clock by the bed, not really concerned. At about the five-minute mark, Laura starts to worry. At ten, she’s actively holding back full-blown panic, simultaneously trying, and trying not, to imagine what the hell could have happened that has Clint breaking down this way. She’s frightened, but she hangs on. At seventeen minutes he finally loosens his grip and leans back. Her shirt is a ruined mess, Clint’s tears and snot saturating the front. She quickly reaches to the side and grabs a wad of tissues from the box on the bedside table and hands it to him. He mumbles his thanks and wipes his face, blows his nose.

 

She kneels down and unties his shoes and tugs them from his feet, then does the same with his socks. She unbuttons his shirt and pulls the plaid flannel down his arms. Her eyes skim over the bruises, catalogue the new scars, then stall on his arm. She stares at the tattoos, instinctively reaching out, but stopping before touching, hand hovering over the unfamiliar sight. She reminds herself that it’s been five years – for Clint, anyway.

 

Clint reads her reaction and skims his right hand down his arm, as though trying to wipe the ink away. “They’re… um.”  He stops, the unsure expression creeping onto his face again.

 

Laura shakes her head. “Later.” She takes his hands and tugs him to his feet. “Pants,” she instructs, and Clint makes quick work of them. “Lie down,” she says gently as she pulls the blankets back, and he does. She’s never seen him so pliable. It’s disconcerting as hell.

 

She peels off her own pants and the ruined t-shirt she’s wearing and grabs one of Clint’s from the drawer, throwing it over her head before lying down next to him. He immediately pulls her close, wrapping his arms around her, and tucking his face into her neck.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he sobs, pulling her even closer.

 

Her mind is spinning at breakneck speed, trying to come up with an explanation for Clint’s words and behavior. She’s more terrified in this moment than she has been since everything started. “Shh,” she gentles him. “It’s alright.”  

 

Clint makes a harsh noise in his throat and then takes a deep, gasping, hitching breath. “I lost Nat,” he finally confesses, the words carried on a sob. “She’s gone.”

 

Laura’s heart seizes and tears spring into her eyes, but she pushes her own emotions aside because, God, they can’t both lose it right now. She rubs his back soothingly. “Oh, Clint. Oh, God. I’m so sorry,” she murmurs.

 

He makes a sound of abject pain and shakes his head. “It’s my fault.”

 

She releases him and gently pushes Clint back, taking his face in her hands. He tries to deny her, squeezing his eyes shut. “Clint. Look at me,” she demands. There’s a long beat before he complies, his eyes are red and glassy. “I don’t know what happened,” she tells him, low but firm, “and I understand that you might not be able to tell me everything, but I know you well enough to know – _without a shadow of a doubt_ \- that if you knew she was in danger, then you did everything humanly possible not to let whatever happened, happen. I know you Clint Barton, and you will _never_ convince me that that’s not true.”

 

Clint doesn’t argue the point. Laura knows him too well to take that strictly as agreement; more like… grudging acquiescence.

 

Silent tears slip from his eyes again and she pulls him back into her arms, doing her best to soothe him; she’ll process her own grief later. A minute later he shudders, but then seems to calm. She holds him until she drifts off into thankfully dreamless sleep, a long time later.

 

She wakes up once while it’s still dark outside. Clint is spooned up behind her, holding her tightly. He innately knows she’s awake. “She did it for me. For us,” he croaks.

 

Laura can’t really begin to comprehend what that means, but still, she says, “Of course she did.” Because she’s never – _ever_ \- questioned how much Natasha loves them all. She wants to ask what happened. Is desperate to know, really. But years with him have told her that now is not the moment. With her own tears flowing, she turns in his arms to face him.

 

Clint squeezes her tighter. “I missed you – _all of you_ \- so much,” he chokes out, his voice thick with emotion.

 

She can still hardly get her mind around it. That she and the kids were _gone_ from Clint for five years. She doesn’t want to think about what he’d gone through, how he’d suffered and grieved for them. “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re all okay,” she reassures him, stroking his back and hair as she had earlier.

 

He nods into her neck and lets out a deep sigh.    

 

Eventually she dozes again, waking in the morning light, when Nate scurries into their room and jumps onto the bed like it’s any other day. She sees Clint hold back the wince when Nate wriggles in between them, bumping into the bruises that she knows are hidden beneath the sheet. Clint is bleary-eyed, but he looks like he just woke up, so maybe he got a little sleep.

 

“Can we have our picnic today?” Nate asks, cuddling up next to his dad.

 

“Sure, we can, Champ,” Clint says, doing an admirable job of sounding normal as he ruffles the small boy’s hair. When she finds his eyes over Nate’s head, there’s a sliver of life in them.

 

**

 

Clint is still as vigilant with them all that day, but he’s more subtle about it, and the kids all instinctively relax. Still, Laura can see how he goes out of his way to touch them, a gentle hand on Lila’s shoulder, a playful arm around Coop’s neck, scooping Nate up onto his lap as they eat. It’s not that he didn’t do those things before, it’s that he’s almost _always_ touching one of them – if not the kids, because they’re running around, then his arm is wrapped around her side or shoulders, or his fingers are intertwined with hers.

 

He catches her eye over dinner and holds her gaze. He still looks haunted, but there’s something else there, too. Determination, maybe. So she makes a pot of coffee while Clint puts the kids to bed, and when he joins her on the sunporch, she says, “Tell me what you can.”

 

He talks deep into the night. Clint tells her everything, from the moment she and the kids had disappeared from him five years before, to the battle at the Avengers’ Compound. When he gets to what happened on Vormir, she has a flash of raw anger when he tells her that he tried to make the sacrifice himself. She quashes it for the moment because he’s been breaking apart in front of her as he relayed the anguish of the last five years, but they’ll be revisiting that.   

 

By the time he tells her how Tony Stark saved the world, Laura’s so emotionally wrung out that she doesn’t have the words to respond. They both fall asleep on the couch, tangled in each other’s arms.

 

**

 

He’s been home for nearly a month when he thinks that, possibly, he might be able to do it. Maybe. He goes to his sock drawer and digs around until he finds the small box he’d repurposed at the back. He stares at it for a while, rubbing his thumb over the soft, green velvet, trying to decide if this is the day. He doesn’t open it because if he does, he’ll lose his courage.

 

(He’d found it in his pocket after everything – the return from Vormir, the battle, the devastation of their victory. He’d stared, confused and dumbfounded for a moment, and then he’d cursed her and punched the wall. Repeatedly.)

 

He walks out the front door and spots Lila immediately. She’s barely stopped practicing with her bow since he’s been home. He should be proud, but it’s bittersweet. He’d all but given up his favored weapon after losing them, too devastated by his last memory of Lila to pick it up. He’d used his bow by necessity in the battle, but he’s had to fight his subconscious aversion to it since returning, reminding himself constantly that his little Hawkeye is here and she’s okay. They’re all okay.

 

“Hey, Sweetie! Can you come ‘ere for a minute?”

 

Lila sets down the bow and arrow and trots over to him. “Yeah, Dad?”

 

Her smile still nearly crushes him, and he swallows down the lump in his throat.

 

He sits them down together on the glider bench with her tucked next to him, his arm loose around her shoulder. “Listen, Baby,” Lila rolls her eyes at the term of endearment that she thinks she’s outgrown. Clint ignores it. “Your Aunt Nat wanted you to have this.” He pries the velvet box out of the front pocket of his jeans and holds it out to her.

 

Lila takes it with a quizzical expression on her face. She stares at it for a couple of seconds, then slowly opens the hinged top. She gasps quietly when she sees what’s inside.

 

Clint tries to say something but he can’t get any words out.

 

Lila fingers the tiny arrow for a moment, then carefully pulls the chain from the box. “Will you put it on me?” she asks, solemn and serious, and it hits him hard how grown up his daughter has suddenly become.

 

He smiles, words still missing, and takes the delicate chain from her. She turns in her seat and lifts her hair so he can see as he tries to get his clumsy fingers to work the miniscule clasp. When he finally gets it, he tugs her close, back under his arm, and they glide back and forth quietly for a few minutes. Weeks beyond his return, he still can’t believe he’s here with them. But he’s finally beginning to understand how and why Natasha had done what she had – beginning to let go of some of his guilt - learning, if reluctantly, to accept and appreciate her choice. To love her even more for it.    

 

Lila shifts and it draws his attention back to her. “Will you tell me what happened?” she asks quietly. She’s suddenly very still.

 

He’d told the full story to Laura, but they had only told the kids that Aunt Nat had died. Clint takes a breath and steadies himself, then pulls her in to wrap both arms around her. He squeezes her for a second then relaxes his hold and kisses the top of her head. It’s another minute before he can begin.

 

“Your Aunt Nat...” he stops. Clint clears his throat, takes a deep breath, starts over. “In order for us to bring everyone back, we had to get something very important – a kind of a stone. But it was impossible to get without someone… without someone making a sacrifice. Aunt Nat… she… she knew how hard it was for me when you were gone, and more than anything else, she wanted our family to be together again. For everyone’s families to be together again. So she did what needed to be done, to get what we needed to bring everyone back.” It’s vague, but the older kids are used to Clint giving them the big picture while skirting specific details.

 

“So. She was a hero.” It’s not a question, and there is obvious pride in the statement.

 

“Always.” He nods. “The biggest and bravest.” He kisses her head again.

 

They glide for more long moments before she breaks the fragile silence.

 

“I miss her.” Lila’s voice is suddenly small, and she sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, then slides the sleeve of her shirt across her face. He can see where her tears have left dark marks on the fabric.

 

Clint pulls her closer. “I know. So do I. But always remember that your Aunt Nat loved you and your brothers and your mom, more than anyone or anything in this world.”

 

“And you,” she adds.

 

“And me,” he agrees.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh. If you actually clicked on this fic, and then read to the end, I always appreciate feedback. It helps motivate me to buckle down and dig into something else, and in this new Post-Endgame world, I could use it.


End file.
